Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate generally to a wireless communications network, and more particularly, to a method and a communications device for grouping user equipments (UEs) in Proximity-based Services (ProSe) restricted discovery in wireless communications systems.
Description of the Related Art
For a long time, various machines have been provided to make our lives more convenient in every way. Nowadays, machines are generally equipped with computing processors and software to accommodate us with more intelligence-based services. With the advancement of wireless communications, Machine Type Communication (MTC) technology has been developed to enable wireless communications between remote machines for exchanging information and operating without human interaction. Especially for critical public infrastructure, such as water treatment facilities, bridges or nature reserves, MTC sensors may be employed to monitor the operation statuses of facilities or statuses of environmental measurements and to report measurement results back to control centers via a wireless communication technology, such as the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) technology, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology, Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) technology, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology, High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology, Code Division Multiple Access 2000 (CDMA-2000) technology, Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) technology, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology, Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, LTE-Advanced technology, Time-Division LTE (TD-LTE) technology, etc.
In order to deploy machine type communication (MTC) services on large open area coverage devices which have low mobility and are lower cost, users/service operators manage the devices by groups. Therefore, the users/service operators can transmit command messages to the devices in the groups instead of transmitting the command messages to the devices individually, or can receive the messages from the devices in the groups instead of receiving the messages from the devices individually, so that it can save resources in UEs and networks/servers. In addition, according to the specification defined in the 3GPP (The 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP) TS22.368, the MTC systems should be optimized to handle the MTC groups. However, in the prior art, it only defines how to pass group messages to the devices in groups (for example, by cell broadcast, Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services, MBMS), IP multicast, etc.), but it is not clear how to group the devices into groups.
Thus, a grouping method, device, and communications system based on MTC are needed to solve the problems described above.